Introductory Note

to

Taitian the Assyrian

[Translated by J. E. Ryland.]

[a.d.
110–172.] It was my first intention to make this author a mere
appendix to his master, Justin Martyr; for he stands in an equivocal
position, as half Father and half heretic. His good seems to have been
largely due to Justin’s teaching and influence. One may trust that
his falling away, in the decline of life, is attributable to infirmity
of mind and body; his severe asceticism countenancing this charitable
thought. Many instances of human frailty, which the experience of ages
has taught Christians to view with compassion rather than censure, are
doubtless to be ascribed to mental aberration and decay. Early Christians
had not yet been taught this lesson; for, socially, neither Judaism nor
Paganism had wholly surrendered their unloving influences upon their
minds. Moreover, their high valuation of discipline, as an essential
condition of self-preservation amid the fires of surrounding scorn and
hatred, led them to practice, perhaps too sternly, upon offenders, what
they often heroically performed upon themselves,—the amputation
of the scandalous hand, or the plucking out of the evil eye.

In Tatian, another Assyrian follows the Star of
Bethlehem, from Euphrates and the Tigris. The scanty facts of his
personal history are sufficiently detailed by the translator, in his
Introductory Note. We owe to himself the pleasing story of his conversion
from heathenism. But I think it important to qualify the impressions
the translation may otherwise leave upon the student’s mind, by a
little more sympathy with the better side of his character, and a more
just statement of his great services to the infant Church.

His works, which were very numerous, have perished,
in consequence of his lapse from orthodoxy. Give him due credit for his
Diatessaron, of which the very name is a valuable testimony to
the Four Gospels as recognised by the primitive churches. It is lost,
with the “infinite number” of other books which St. Jerome
attributes to him. All honour to this earliest harmonist for such a work;
and let us believe, with Mill and other learned authorities, that, if
Eusebius had seen the work he censures, he might have expressed himself
more charitably concerning it.

We know something of Tatian, already, from the
melancholy pages of Irenæus. Theodoret finds no other fault with
his Diatessaron than its omission of the genealogies, which he,
probably, could not harmonize on any theory of his own. The errors into
which he fell in his old age420420
“Paul the aged” was only sixty when he gives himself
this title. (Philem. 9). See the additional note, Speaker’s
Commentary, vol. iii. 843. were so absurd, and so contrary
to the Church’s doctrine and discipline, that he could not be
tolerated as one of the faithful, without giving to the heathen new
grounds for the malignant slanders with which they were ever assailing
the Christians. At the same time, let us reflect,
62that his fall is to be attributed to
extravagant ideas of that encraty which is a precept of the Gospel, and
which a pure abhorrence of pagan abominations led many of the orthodox to
practice with extreme rigidity. And this is the place to say, once for
all, that the figures of Elijah upon Mt. Carmel and of John Baptist in
the wilderness, approved by our Lord’s teachings, but moderated,
as a lesson to others, by his own holy but less austere example, justify
the early Church in making room for the two classes of Christians which
must always be found in earnest religion, and which seem to have their
warrant in the fundamental constitution of human nature. There must be
men like St. Paul, living in the world, though not of it; and there must
be men like the Baptist, of whom the world will say, “he hath a
devil.” Marvellously the early Catholics were piloted between the
rocks and the whirlpools, in the narrow drift of the Gospel; and always
the Holy Spirit of counsel and might was their guardian, amid their
terrible trials and temptations. This must suggest, to every reflecting
mind, a gratitude the most profound. To preserve evangelical encraty, and
to restrain fanatical asceticism, was the spirit of early Christianity,
as one sees in the ethics of Hermas. But the awful malaria of Montanism
was even now rising like a fog of the marshes, and was destined to
leave its lasting impress upon Western Christianity; “forbidding
to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.” Our author,
alas, laid the egg which Tertullian hatched, and invented terms which
that great author raised to their highest power; for he was rather the
disciple of Tatian than of the Phrygians, though they kindled his strange
fire. After Tertullian, the whole subject of marriage became entangled
with sophistries, which have ever since adhered to the Latin churches,
and introduced the most corrosive results into the vitals of individuals
and of nations. Southey suggests, that, in the Roman Communion, John
Wesley would have been accommodated with full scope for his genius, and
canonized as a saint, while his Anglican mother had no place for him.421421 See (vol. ii. p. 331.) Southey’s
Life of Wesley; an invaluable work, and one which presents this
eminent saint in a most interesting light, even to worldly men. Ed. New
York, Harpers, 1853. But, on the other hand, let us reflect
that while Rome had no place for Wiclif and Hus, or Jerome of Prague,
she has used and glorified and canonized many fanatics whose errors were
far more disgraceful than those of Tatian and Tertullian. In fact, she
would have utilized and beatified these very enthusiasts, had they risen
in the Middle Ages, to combine their follies with equal extravagance in
persecuting the Albigenses, while aggrandizing the papal ascendency.

I have enlarged upon the equivocal character of Tatian
with melancholy interest, because I shall make sparing use of notes, in
editing his sole surviving work, pronounced by Eusebius his masterpiece. I
read it with sympathy, admiration, and instruction. I enjoy his biting
satire of heathenism, his Pauline contempt for all philosophy save
that of the Gospel, his touching reference to his own experiences,
and his brilliant delineation of Christian innocence and of his own
emancipation from the seductions of a deceitful and transient world. In
short, I feel that Tatian deserves critical editing, in the original,
at the hand and heart of some expert who can thoroughly appreciate his
merits, and his relations to primitive Christianity.

The following is the original Introductory Notice:—

We learn from several sources that Tatian was
an Assyrian, but know nothing very definite either as to the time or
place of his birth. Epiphanius (Hær., xlvi.) declares that
he was a native of Mesopotamia; and we infer from other ascertained
facts regarding him, that he flourished about the middle of the second
century. He was at first an eager student of heathen literature, and
seems to have been especially devoted to researches in philosophy. But
he found no satisfaction in the bewildering mazes of Greek speculation,
while he became utterly disgusted with what heathenism presented to him
under the name of religion. In these circumstances, he happily met with
the sacred books of the Christians, and was powerfully attracted by the
purity of morals which these inculcated, and by the means of deliverance
from the bondage of sin which
63they revealed. He seems to have embraced
Christianity at Rome, where he became acquainted with Justin Martyr, and
enjoyed the instructions of that eminent teacher of the Gospel. After
the death of Justin, Tatian unfortunately fell under the influence of
the Gnostic heresy, and founded an ascetic sect, which, from the rigid
principles it professed, was called that of the Encratites, that is,
“The self-controlled,” or, “The masters of
themselves.” Tatian latterly established himself at Antioch,
and acquired a considerable number of disciples, who continued after his
death to be distinguished by the practice of those austerities which
he had enjoined. The sect of the Encratites is supposed to have been
established about a.d. 166,
and Tatian appears to have died some few years afterwards.

The only extant work of Tatian is his “Address
to the Greeks.” It is a most unsparing and direct exposure of
the enormities of heathenism. Several other works are said to have been
composed by Tatian; and of these, a Diatessaron, or Harmony
of the Four Gospels, is specially mentioned. His Gnostic views led
him to exclude from the continuous narrative of our Lord’s life,
given in this work, all those passages which bear upon the incarnation
and true humanity of Christ. Not withstanding this defect, we cannot
but regret the loss of this earliest Gospel harmony; but the very title
it bore is important, as showing that the Four Gospels, and these only,
were deemed authoritative about the middle of the second century.